Hospital visits

Visits to hospitals and clinics are not my favourite chore but it has to be done when one has old parents staying with one.Every time I go to a hospital I marvel at the fact that most of the patients are in their thirties and forties with a few fifties and sixties thrown in but very few people in their eighties and ninenties.I am not sure if its because our population is so much younger than the rest of the world.I am not sure of our old people are not cared for as much but what ever the reason my mother seems to be part of a minority group.Hospitals today are also very high tech and full of machines and technology,doctors area also young ones who are too busy to spend more than five minutes with the patient.The people who operate the machines are even younger.All this is fine until they have to deal with someone old who finds it difficult to deal with machines.Some one who may be hard of hearing,someone who may not understand instructions too well or someone too slow to keep pace.Yesterday we went to get my mothers eyes checked.She had to go through various tests on various machines all more high tech that the next.All precision machines which would cry foul and error the moment any one of their instructions are not followed to the T.A young boy of around twenty got on with the tests but his patience was soon tried as my mother simple could not or was too slow to follow his instructions.I had to repeat each instruction gently to her so as not to get her too anxious,by which time the machine had cried "error".The boy now was telling me that the test would not be accurate as she wasn 't quick enough.I told him that he needed to realise that the test would not be a hundred percent accurate when old people are involved and that a certain amount of error much be factored in on parameters such as age and infirmity.He didnt seem convinced though he did conseed that he may not live to be her age.The same case with the doctor.I was told that there was far too much damage to her optic nerve and there was nothing they could do about it.Of course she didnt think it was a big deal after all the patient was in her 80s (this wasnt said in so may words but the body language was clear).I have met with such situations so many times now that I wonder why we fail to see that age has nothing to do with living.One can be in the 80s or 90s and still want to stay healthy and happy albeit a bit slow.Isnt it time for our medical profession to learn to have the patience and kindness and the empathy to deal with the older generation.Why is it that in the quest for better machines and better medican we forget that a good bedside manner is a far more important asset than all the help machines and such can give us.A good doctor is one who can make a diagnosis even when none of the technology is at his or her disposal.A good doctor is one who can spend time and listen to a patient and find out a lot more than  what a questionnaire can throw up and finally a good doctor is one who can deal with all age groups and still manage to get to the heart of the problem.I wonder if that will ever happen